The present invention relates generally to the form of commercial ice making machines which produce and harvest a flake ice product formed, for example, around the interior of a refrigerated cylindrical wall that is sized to cooperate with a rotatable harvesting auger which is operative to transfer the flake ice product to an associated ice extruding chamber. Disposed within the chamber is a longitudinally extending rotatable compression auger that is operable to compress the flake ice product into a hard column of ice which moves axially outwardly from the chamber into engagement with a breaker head that causes the column of ice to be broken into discrete ice chunks or "cubes". Generally speaking, the aforesaid type of ice producing apparatus is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,662,564; 3,702,543 and 3,654,770.